Bahrain issues 31 fifteen-year jail terms over police attack

A protester holds a banner as she participates in an anti-government sit-in organized by Bahrain's main opposition party Al Wefaq in the village of Sitra south of Manama, May 3, 2013. Banner reads, "Steadyfast. Freedom for the Detainee Isa Al Aali''. (Reuters/Hamad I Mohammed) / Reuters

Bahrain’s court has sentenced 31 protesters to 15 years in prison for attacking a police patrol in a Shiite village, media reported. The accused claim they were coerced into confessing.

“The protests have only grown larger in the past two years.
We’ve witnessed that the harsher the sentences are, the more anger
it brings to the people and the more reasons it gives them to
protest…for now, we don’t have any other choice but to
protest,” he told RT.

Demonstrations – calling for democracy and an end to the
monarchy – have been continuing in Bahrain for two years. Protests
particularly intensified as the Gulf country was preparing to host
a Formula 1 race on April 21. The protesters claimed the F1 event –
which they labeled ‘race for blood’ – overshadowed the ruling
Bahraini Sunni royal family’s many human rights abuses and
repression of the country’s Shiite population.

One of the best-known cases of the Bahraini regime cracking down
on opposition was the arrest of prominent activist Nabeel Rajab,
who openly criticized the regime, following an interview on RT for
Julian Assange’s show The World Tomorrow. In August 2012 Rajab was
sentenced to three years in jail for
‘participation in an illegal assembly’ and ‘calling for a march
without prior notification’.

Earlier in the week, the kingdom – which is home of the US
Navy’s Fifth Fleet - canceled next month’s planned visit by the United
Nations' torture expert, citing delays in ‘ongoing national
dialogue’.

Human rights groups have reported that at least 80 people have
been killed and thousands arrested since the demonstrations began
in 2011.